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Sunday, March 7, 2021

Keys To the Kingdom …

Matthew 16: 13-20

Charles J. Tomlin, March 7th, 2021, 

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Kingdom of God Series, 10 of 14

 

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"

 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

 17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was1 the Messiah (Matt. 16:13-20 NRS).

         For these past 10 weeks we have been considering passages about the Kingdom of God in Matthew’s gospel.   We’ve seen how God’s kingdom comes near to us in the life and teachings of Jesus, especially as it’s revealed in Jesus’ own parables and stories.  

But while the kingdom comes close to us, God’s kingdom has never been fully realized as a full-blown political and earthly reality.   God’s kingdom is only realized in the personal and public lives and actions of those who choose to trust and live under God’s rule, struggling to do justice and love mercy in a world where evil can be overwhelming.   

This is exactly why Jesus points out that this kingdom remains small, hidden, or surprising like a seed, a treasure or like the find in a fisherman’s net.  This is how the kingdom will be known, in small, growing, surprising and valued ways, until that day when ‘the kingdoms of this world’ becomes the ‘kingdoms of our Lord’ (Rev 11.15).  So, until that day comes, we live in eager expectation this kingdom that is still coming, but for now remains elusive, tentative, and incomplete.

But this kind of hesitant hope is not all we have.  We also live with the possibilities of the kingdom being as close to us now as it was for those who first heard Jesus announcing it.    As Jesus said in his parables, ‘the kingdom is like or can be compared to something that is happening around us, right now. 

So, with this perspective in mind, I want us to consider what Matthew means about the ‘keys to the kingdom’ which were given not only to Peter but to us too.  We want to consider how we can unlock the reality of God’s kingdom in our lives today, even before it is fully realized in the world.

 

WHO DO PEOPLE SAY...I AM? (13)

We want to begin by examining the drama taking place in this text.  Jesus has taken his disciples far away from the Jewish world into gentile territory, in the countryside near Caesarea Philippi.   He has taken them there to ask questions too dangerous to ask back home.

Things were already getting dangerous in Israel because all kinds of questions were swirling about Jesus, about his identity, about his teachings, and about his public ministry.   Some of these same questions still surround the subject of Jesus’ today.   In fact, most questions point straight back to the very first question Jesus asked his disciples here: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" (Matt. 16:13 NRS).

What is most remarkable about Jesus is that from opening days of his earthly ministry, people were already wondering, ‘Who is this fellow?  Isn’t this Joseph, the carpenter’s son?”  Very quickly people understood there was something different, unique, and special about him.  He became so popular that the authorities were constantly sending ‘spies’ to ‘trip him up’.  The only way they finally got to him was to pay one of his own disciples to betrayed him during the night, so people would not see what was happening.   Jesus was arrested, sent through a mock trial, accused of blasphemy, and then finally crucified by the Roman occupiers.

No competent historian would dispute these most basic events in the gospels.   Jesus lived.  Jesus was a religious teacher.  He was much beloved at first, but his innovative ideas insulted the religious elite of Jerusalem and he eventually came to be hated. 

Of course, the New Testament has a lot more to say.   It not only records Jesus’ life and teachings through stories and parables, but each gospel makes similar claims that on the third day after he cruelly crucified, Jesus appeared to his disciples, and was later seen by at least 500 eyewitnesses.   Then, within only a couple of months, the disciples began to openly proclaim Jesus with great certainty, even putting their own lives at risk too.  At the core of their message was that Jesus is God’s true Messiah, victorious over sin and death.  He is the only true savior of the world.  

Even skeptics, must admit that’s a pretty big jump for someone who only a couple months before was considered a criminal.   And this astounding story about Jesus has impacted and directed the moral and religious conscience of western cultures for about 1700 years, up until our own time.  Even today, Jesus is still the most discussed and debated religious figure in human history who is also the saving hope of about 2.4 billion people around the world.            

Because of this incredible and still mystifying story, we too must consider who he was, not only historically, but personally.  In this text too, it moves from asking what others think about Jesus to asking his disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  This is where the question about Jesus still leads.  His story, when rightly understood, has the tendency to get into us; even to see right through us.  It’s not only a story for experts to think about, but the question of Jesus seeks us out personally, one by one, person to person, and asks what we think or believe about him. 

Now, what about this question: Who is Jesus to you?  This is still a ‘loaded’ question because it has been asked over and over for 2000 years.  And the typical answer normally goes in one of two directions, just like it did in the gospel story.   People either loved him or hated him, adored him, or despised him, some followed, but others ignored him.  There is hardly any room for being neutral about Jesus.  As one respected scholar put it, today Jesus is much more a question put to us, than an answer.  What he means is that the life of this rejected, crucified Messiah, still questions how we should be living our own lives.    The point of Jesus isn’t to figure him out, but it’s to let the truth about Jesus guide us in figuring out who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do with our lives.

Since Jesus is still the most important question for us, it naturally follows that we must first seek to understand Jesus’ own identity, so we can know how shape our own.  For those of us who are Christians, even when we say that we believe that Jesus is God come to us in human flesh, or that we have already trusted in him as our Savior, if we are honest, there are still many unanswered and unanswerable questions about him.  

Interestingly, most of our questions go right back to the gospel accounts themselves since Jesus never officially nor directly announced himself as the Messiah.   Jesus allowed others to think, consider or claim these kinds of things about him, but rarely did Jesus say these things about himself, at least not directly.   A clear example his reluctance is right here at the end of today’s text.  Jesus instructs his disciples not to tell ‘anyone’ about what he has just said (v. 20).  He took this approach many times after someone had been healed by their faith, not so much by him.

Jesus own reluctance to openly claim himself Israel’s promised Messiah still sounds strange to us.  Scholars have for his reluctance: ‘The Messianic Secret’.  But why did Jesus keep his own identity hidden?  Was he deliberately trying to stay alive long enough to finish his work?  Did he want his own disciples to take responsibility in identifying him?   Perhaps Jesus even thought his disciples, nor the world, were ready to know the full truth about him before the resurrection.  It could have been any of these, but whatever the reason, Jesus commanded his disciples not to tell anyone about who he is, or what he has done.  But the ‘word’ about him usually got out anyway.

As we all know, the gospels conclude with the disciples being challenged to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the world, but Matthew tells us that some were still struggling with questions about him?  Even with Jesus standing right in front of them, Matthew’s gospel says some’ among his disciples ‘still doubted’.   That is certainly a strange way to put an evangelistic story together, don’t you think? 

Later on, after Peter began preaching that Jesus is the saving power of God (Acts 2-4) and the missionary work of the church was reaching into the Gentile world through Paul’s witness (Acts 9ff), as the New Testament period closes there are still serious questions surfacing about him.  The faith of Jesus and faith in Jesus was still being refined and being debated.  Some were even reconsidering whether to stay with Jesus or to leave the faith altogether. That’s what the book of Galatians and Hebrews were about.  They were written to encourage Christ-following-Jews to stay with Jesus because some were seriously considering abandoning him.  

These kinds of questions are still being asked by Christians today, especially with the decline of Christianity in the west, the decrease in church attendance and the dominating culture of mistrust of most forms of establishment.  Even many people who were raised in church and been baptized as believers, are now asking themselves, why should I stay with Jesus?  Does his life or message really make any difference for me?

Since there are always questions about Him that have yet to be fully answered, differing interpretations about him never ends.  And for us too, even after making Jesus our Savior, we are constantly challenged every day to decide afresh what Jesus means for the living of our own days.  

Surprisingly, this constant questioning can be a good thing.   We must never stop considering, thinking, or wondering about Jesus, just like we should daily look out our windows, listen or read the news and wonder about life.  For if we ever stop listening, thinking, or questioning, we know we are headed toward darkness and death, not light or life.   And if we ever stop thinking about the meaning of Jesus for the world or for our lives, we will be headed into a world without light and hope.  

So, questions are good.   We must continue to reflect upon and decide how Jesus influences our lives, not merely as a historical figure, but the living and indwelling Spirit of God’s abiding presence.   This why the angels name Jesus “Immanuel—God with us”.   When the Spirit of all life is with us and in us, we can keep a dialogue about life going on within our hearts, raising life’s most important questions every day.   We do this by allowing the ‘Spirit of Jesus’ and the spirit of who he was and what he did, to keep questioning us, to keep guiding us, and to continue to inspire us in the way we should love God and each other, and in who we should be and in how we should live our lives.

 

UPON THIS ROCK... (18)

Now, look back at our text for a brief moment.   When Simon Peter, the outspoken one, answered for the rest of the disciples, saying “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  Peter is saying something very Jewish; “You are the Messiah”.  He is also saying something very Gentile: You are ‘the Son of the Living God.”  I could say more about that, but what is most important for us is that this very confession of faith in Jesus is the ‘rock’ upon which the church and the kingdom of God is established.   Confessing Jesus as the long-awaited and promised Messiah of Israel, God’s anointed one, and the true ‘Son of God’ ruling in the world, is the ‘key to the kingdom’. 

As God’s true Son and God’s anointed one, Jesus isn’t like other earthly rulers, either in Israel’ past, nor in Rome’s present rule.  Those rulers  didn’t rule righteously, but Jesus does.  In great contrast, Jesus rules over God’s kingdom that is already present and hidden in human hearts, so that a Jesus can unlock the door to God’s kingdom, on earth, as it is in heaven.

So, Peter isn’t the ‘rock’ or the ‘foundation’ of the church, but it’s Peter’s rock-solid confession of who Jesus is, as God’s Messiah, God’s Kingly ruler, and God’s anointed one is the key.   This is what establishes the church as the people of God’s eternal kingdom, apart from the people of Israel.  The future of God’s saving work for the whole world is based upon those who profess and confess faith in Jesus and thereby, create the body of Christ in the world, the church.  

Jesus promises that the church, the people, who confess the truth about him and live the truth about him, cannot and will not die.  This is what it means when Jesus says the ‘gates of Hades’ or ‘death’ will not overcome the church.  Jesus isn’t saying that a church can’t die, nor is he even saying ‘the Church’ or Christianity can’t die.  No, what Jesus is saying is that as long anyone confesses faith in him, in Jesus, the church lives.  The ‘rock’ that holds up the church is a living, confessing, believing, and trusting faith that is rooted and grounded in him.  Without faith, there is no foundation for the church, and would crumble.   But where there is a confessing faith in Jesus Christ, there is foundation that holds, and there is always a living, present, confessing church!

 

WHATEVER YOU LOOSE...BIND  (19)

Now, finally, we arrive at the place where we’ve been all along, as the poet says, but we might only now recognize it for the very first time.   The church of Jesus Christ doesn’t survive as a nice, moral, social club, where people meet to have polite fellowships with and talk about personal or community needs.  The church needs to do this, but this is not what keeps the church alive.  

The church also doesn’t survive as a interesting place to casually study a ‘good book’, even hearing from ‘the good book’,  or by asking deep questions about life, thinking good thoughts about life, nor does the church survive by challenging us to live good and better lives.  Of course, the church needs to do these things too, especially since we learn about Jesus in the greatest book of all.   But for the church to live, to be vibrant and alive in the world today, it must be more than a place to read, hear and think about Jesus.  It must also be a place where we confess and live as if Jesus is our savior, our redeemer, and our lord.

While fellowship, studying, hearing the word, singing or learning about life is all very important for our spiritual lives,  the church is without a foundation and is in danger of decline and death, unless it continues to be a church made up of people who confess faith in the living Spirit of Jesus Christ, who gives us our spiritual life and community.   The difference between being a living church, rather than a dying church, is determined by the actual faith we continue to confess in Jesus as the Christ.

This living confession of our faith in Jesus Christ, is what releases God’s saving presence among us because is it is still Jesus who holds the key to our spiritual life and to our hope of life to come.  Through his living, spiritual presence made present in his own ethical, moral, and kingdom teachings new worlds of human possibilities open us, because Jesus is the key and holds the keys to God’s kingdom, on earth, as it is in heaven.  

This explains to me why Jesus gave Peter these ‘keys to the kingdom’ right after this great confession.   It also explains why immediately after this confession and passing on the keys to Peter, that Jesus informed his disciples that he must ‘suffer’, ‘die’ and be raised on the third day.   The physical, human Jesus would not be in this world much longer, but the kingdom was still coming near.  Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as a particular Jewish Messiah who offered salvation to Israel, but was rejected by them,  God has now planted a seed, hid a great treasure, so that God’s saving grace and goodness can be fully cast like a net into the whole wide world.

This is what Jesus means by those strange words given to Peter, when he gave him the keys of the kingdom, then concluded:  Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:19 NRS).   Most commentaries will interpret these ‘keys’ to mean that Jesus passes on authority and power to the church, so that the church has a final say in who gets to heaven.

While I do think Jesus is passing own his authority to the church, this authority is not about Saint Peter, or the church deciding who gets into heaven or who doesn’t.   This is about the church being the way to unlock the doors for the world to enter the kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.   Holding the keys is an authority that resides in the church’s own faith and confession of Jesus Christ.  This authority is given to the church and to churches who remain connected to the spiritual presence of Jesus and follow Jesus’ teachings and commands. 

When we, the people of God, live and do God’s will on earth, we are given the ‘keys to the kingdom’.   How we confess Christ and live Christ in the world, determine the nearness of the kingdom.   The only way the church, or we, would ever have any kind of access these keys, is the same way Peter gained access to them; by confessing and then living for Jesus as the true saving Messiah, the true Son of God, who is the saving hope for the world.   Do you have the keys?  Amen.  


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